and so, a 21st century presidential campaign comes down to a fight over horses and bayonets. >> the final debate now over at last. >> the presidential debates are over. >> it's two weeks until election day. >> two weeks left and every moment count. >> it's on to a 14-day push. >> the campaign is now in a frantic. >> all important. >> campaign push. >> with dueling events happening this very hour. >> both candidates are on the trail this hour. >> romney's foreign policy has been wrong and reckless. >> the president has not articulated. >> i'm proud to talk about what's in my plan. if you want to take a look, check it out. >> do you play it safe? >> we need to fix our problems. >> do you go more aggressive? >> there is no quit in america. >> do you take some chances? >> you want to control your

destiny. >> a lot of talk about momentum in this race. >> these polls indicate momentum. >> you can scratch two more states off the list of toss-ups. >> and now there are seven. >> the battle ground has changed one again. >> it seems to me there are seven. >> colorado or wisconsin. >> north carolina, nevada. >> virginia and colorado. >> but there really are only one. >> ohio, ohio, ohio. >> i don't know that mitt romney gets there. >> gets where the president and biden are today. >> god bless you ohio. >> we're moving forward. america is coming back and i've got news for governor romney. >> if you don't run chris christie, romney will be the nominee and he'll lose. >> with just 14 days until the election, president obama began the day campaigning in florida and then flew to ohio where he

tried to reinforce the obama message in last night's debate. >> america needs leadership that is strong and steady. unfortunately governor romney's foreign policy has been wrong and reckless. you heard him last night. during the debate he said he didn't want more troops in iraq, but he was caught on a video just a few months ago saying it was unthinkable not to leave 20,000 troops in iraq. >> and here is that caught-on-video moment that president obama is referring to. >> this president's failure to put in place an agreement to allowing troops to stay in iraq. unthinkable. >> dr. obama thinks he saw more symptoms of romnesia last night. you wrote an article titled "let detroit go bankrupt."

you definitely have a case of romnesia. there's a cure, but you've got to vote to make sure that the medicine is there for romnesia. >> vice president joe biden is still humble enough to admit that last night's debate left him confused. >> last night you saw governor romney rushing to agree with the president on iraq, afghanistan, syria. he disavowed the foreign policy he's been running on for the past two years, just like that. half the time i didn't know whether governor romney was there to debate barack obama or endorse barack obama. it was hard to tell. >> 59.2 million television viewers watched last night's debate, down from 65.6 million who watched the second presidential debate.

a cbs poll shows that 53% of uncommitted voters believe president obama won and only 23% believe romney one. and a reuters poll shows 37% obama won and 31% romney won. and 42% believe mitt romney won. today nate silver forecasts that on november 6th, president obama has a 73% chance of winning re-election and mitt romney will win 247 votes. >> i know you work while rush limbaugh is on. you actually overlap with him. >> i actually have him in my ear. >> you can't miss a minute. >> so you cut deeply into his first hour of ratings.

>> i do. >> therefore it is my job to deliver to you what rush has said today. it took him a while but he figured out romney's debate strategy last night. >> a lot of people on our side thought he agreed with obama too much. a lot of people on our side didn't like that debate last night. let me just tell you. if my circle of friends is any indication. a lot of people thought romney got his clock cleaned, didn't like it at all. think the election is lost. i'm not kidding you. once i understood the strategy that the romney camp was employing, then the whole thing made sense to me. and the original disquietness and uncomfortableness and dissatisfaction that i was sensing melted away. and i had an entirely different view -- i thought from the get-go obama looked mean. i thought he looked petulant. i thought he did not look

likable. >> romney's strategy was to make obama look mean. it took rush all morning to figure that out. >> theories like that don't -- >> you've got to think about it. >> who is in rush limbaugh's circle of friends? that gaggle of crows. >> ppp has been tracking the circle of rush's friends every day throughout the election. >> it's like honestly people on the left thought obama threw the first debate so he could come back hard in the second. this is nonsense. mitt romney did get his clock cleaned but far be it from anybody on the right to give the president any kind of credit. the idea here is that the operating principle is mitt romney is going to pivot as hard to the center as he possibly can, to the point of giving

president obama a bear hug on foreign policy on every single issue that pertains to american's role on the global stage, whether it's iran, pakistan, the usage of drones. there was no daylight between the two. i will say the only brilliance is that it is very difficult for the president to make a strong case against the republican party when someone is bear hugging you that closely. it is like trying to get a glass of water from the mirage in the desert the burden of proof lies with the american voters. >> what i'm left is the question of what should romney have said? he had embraced the obama positions, all of which are better positions than the romney positions. so, what choice did he have? stick with the bad position that can scare people? >> totally the right strategy.

i think it was -- look. the problem that mitt romney has had for the duration of the two years he's been running for office is that he has a lot of positions that aren't very popular. and he had to keep hammering those positions because he constantly had to shore up his right. at a certain point they got desperate enough that they basically said go do your thing and now he's doing his thing and they've made the correct strategic choiceness so far as the american public is weary. they don't want to hear you talk about how we should have more troops in iraq and we shouldn't come back from afghanistan and how we should essentially from a red line with iran that might put iran over the line as we speak. they don't want to hear that because they are unpopular and terrible policy positions so they are strategically wise to disavow them. the question is people will ask eventually, do you have -- is there a single fixed principle do you have? do you have any -- seriously, there's something almost breath

taking about it. i would actually rather a politician have no principles then have really strongly believed in terrible principles. >> you've got your candidate. >> but there is also something terrifying about someone who really manifestly and with a kind of, almost unnerving convincingness will tell you something as if he hasn't changed his mind. rachel made this point last night. you can change your mind on an issue and say look, i was wrong. they had to have their come to jesus moment, i was wrong, now i'm right, i've changed my mind. but romney just pretends he never had the position before. and that is very unnerving. >> and we're not talking about economic issues or positions on health care or the like. we're talking about war. >> there was a giant romney behind you on the big board for a while because he's giving a live speech by the way.

as soon as he says something interesting we'll let him interrupt you. the giant romney is over your shoulder. don't let that affect you in any way. >> he won't. if it was a giant rush it would be different. to your point chris and to rachel's point before. we talk about who is the most despicable person in politics. and with regards to mitt romney, there's been no sort of seeming deliberation over any of these issues. it is as the president said, a white washing of history and a romnesia and that is incredibly disconcerting as long as you remember that he started from a different place and that's the big question, right? he woo look at the numbers in terms of viewership on all these debates. 52 or 53 million people we are hoping they were watching before the debates even began. >> rachel's points last night when you talk about 60 plus thousand troops whose lives are

on the line and this is something you make a calculation about 15 days before the election because there's a certain amount of bad faith. that's the thing i find so trouble some. i think it's strategically wise, it's been executed fairly deftly. there's a fundamental bad faith that is unnerving. do people get that? is there a visceral appreciation of the fact that he is showing up at your door telling you whatever it is you want to here. >> the obama counter to this is don't trust him, don't trust him. but they're speaking to what is now left, this tiny sliver of undecideds and those people don't trust politicians. that's why they're undecided. they don't trust president obama, they don't trust their local mayor. so i'm not sure a trust argument works with people in that kind of voting pattern. >> i think that's true. you've seen and you've played a

lot of sound from obama and biden on the stump today. they are putting heart out there like they have not before on this campaign trail. joe biden has a proclivity towards aviator sunglasses. but it is this idea that you can believe in obama, that he has the heart, he has legitimacy, he has this moral compass that mitt romney doesn't have. i will say when delivering these lines, which fundamentally are campaign lines and which obama delivered last night with aplomb, there is something more fundamentally maybe more believable and convincing in them. hopefully that sways independent voters. i don't know. >> i think also they've done a very good job. at this point and it's a very apt point by you that the undecideds don't trust politicians. there is an authority that comes with being the president of the united states that they have been leaning on harder and harder. you saw it in the secretary debate when he's talking about

the deaths in benghazi. i'm the president and you've seen him using that card playing it more and more and i think at this point, lord knows what is in the mind of those few undecided voters. >> apparently our control room has decided is more important that any word that the giant romney was saying. >> he's decided to completely go all in. >> thank you very much for keeping the giant romney quiet. >> it's our great pleasure. coming up. the obama campaign's target, ohio, ohio and ohio. and in the rewrite, how another comedian may have been the source for president obama's best line of the night. . [ female announcer ] today, jason is here

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last night the presidential candidates were fighting over foreign policy, but they were really fighting over ohio. we'll show you how, next. and in the rewrite tonight, we will reveal the comedy writer who came up with the horses and bayonets line. that's coming up. .

so anyway, i've been to a lot of places. you know, i've helped a lot of people save a lot of money. but today...( sfx: loud noise of large metal object hitting the ground) things have been a little strange. (sfx: sound of piano smashing) roadrunner: meep meep. meep meep? (sfx: loud thud sound) what a strange place. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. >> we've already created 5.2 million jobs. we've already brought back the automobile industry. the president and i worked so hard to rescue the automobile industry right here in ohio, more than 100,000 jobs are directly supported.

that was joe biden today in tow toledo. >> i said these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy and in that process they can get government help and government guarantees but they need to go through bankruptcy to get rid of excess costs and the debt burden that they've built up -- >> that's no not what you said. >> under no circumstances would i do anything other than that to help the industry get on its feet. the idea that has been suggested that i would liquidate the industry. of course not. >> let's check the record. >> i have never said that i would liquidate the industry. >> you were very clear that you would not provide government assistance to the u.s. auto companies even if they went through bankruptcy. you said that they could get it in the private marketplace. that wasn't true.

>> that exchange caused a huge spike in positive sentiment online for president obama. as you can see from this graphic from taykey. the obama campaign is now running this ad in ohio and six other states. >> there's just no quit in america and you're seeing that right now. over 5 million new jobs. supports up over 41%. home values, rising, our auto industry, back. and our heros coming home. we're not there yet, but we've made real progress and the last thing we should do is turn back now. here's my plan for the next four years. making education and training a national priority. building on our manufacturing boom, boosting american-made energy. reducing the deficits responsibly by cutting where we can and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. and ending the war in

afghanistan so we can do some nation building here at home. that's the right path. so read my plan, compare it to governor romney's and help me decide which is better for you. it's an honor to be your president and i'm asking for your vote so together we can keep moving america forward. >> joining me now are former ohio governor ted strickland and robert reich a professor at university of california, berkeley. >> governor, i want to read so we can remember what he said. if general motors, ford and chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the automatic motive industry good-bye. it won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed. without that bailout, detroit will need to drastically restructure itself.

does anyone in ohio think that mitt romney's nonplan for the auto industry would have the industry where it is today? >> there may be one or two. but most ohioans understand what this president has done for ohio and michigan and indiana and many other states where this industry is so vitally important. he rightly should be embarrassed. not necessarily for the position he took. that was his position. but to try to, as the president said, air brush history, rewrite what actually happened, to take credit for something that he drastically opposed, strongly opposed, is just unseemly. but we've seen that throughout the last two or three weeks with his etch-a-sketch remaking of himself. >> robert reich, given the

president's history on the subject, given mitt romney's history on the subject, what would you advise mitt romney to say under these circumstances. >> i think mitt romney be would do well to be honest and say look, i was wrong. i didn't want to bail out the industry but the president did and the president was right and i've come clean. i have enough integrity and moral fiber to be able to say that. and i also don't believe the american people are so stupid as to believe that i didn't say what i actually said just a few months ago. of course you're dealing with a chameleon. you're dealing with somebody who is willing to say anything, anywhere, any place, any time to anybody in order to get votes and that's why it's so important in ohio and around the country for the democrats, for president obama, for everybody who believes in this country to make sure that romney is held accountable for what he has said, what he believes. >> listen to what he said last night, as expected he made that day one promise about chinese

currency manipulation. >> i've watched year in and year out as companies have shut down and people have lost their jobs because china has not played by the same rules. in part by holding down artificially the value of their currency. it holds down the prices of their goods. it means our goods aren't as competitive and we lose jobs. that's got to end. they're making some progress. they need to make more. that's why on day one i will label them a currency manipulator which allows them to apply tariffs where they're taking jobs. >> governor strickland, we've made more progress on chinese currency under president obama than we did under bush. do voters in ohio understand this currency manipulation argument? >> well, i don't know if they understand that. but they understand mitt romney's history. they understand that he's the guy who outsourced jobs to

china. mitt romney is trying to sound tough. he's trying to sound mature. but quite frankly, i think he comes across as, you know, a guy who really doesn't know much about foreign policy. what he knows is how to outsource jobs. how to take his own personal wealth. and enrich himself by putting that wealth in the cayman islands or bermuda or china or where ever. ohioans have figured this guy out. i believe ohio is going to do the right thing. this president has stood up for us, as has senator brown with this trade issue. the tire issue, which the president mentioned last night, he helped save jobs here in ohio and in america by stopping the importation of these cheap chinese tires. mitt romney in his book criticized the president. said it was tragic, the wrong

thing to have done, bad for our economy and now two weeks before an election, he's trying to sound tough on china. it's just almost -- i don't know. he ought to be embarrassed. as the secretary said, this man ought to have the courage and the integrity to stand up for what he has been saying for the last two years. and not try to reinvent himself a handful of days before this election. >> robert reich. >> i was just going to say, lawrence, that the only consistent threat in romney's approach to economics and approach to american industry is the bottom line. he says and he still believes that corporations are people. and he still believes that the way you measure the health of an economy is by the profitability of the corporations. that's why when he was pressed on his position with regard to general motors and chrysler, what he said was he thought bankruptcy would be better than the kind of government support that actually save jobs.

the problem is bankruptcy would have generated huge employment losses. it would have generated maybe a tiny little company that was profitable but it would not have protected american jobs. this is what this man doesn't understand. >> and steve ratner was on "hardball" earlier tonight and he said it was so bad at that time that they didn't have money to pay for their supplies, they would close their doors and liquidate. that's how bad it was when the president intervened. ted strickland and robert reich, thank you for joining me. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, nbc news is now officially narrowing the battle ground states to seven. we'll take a look at those states next. and in the rewrite, we will unmask the comedy writer who come up with the horses and bayonets line, the line of the night in last night's debate. and later d.l. hughley will tell us exactly what romney was

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hello, toledo. >> thank you nevada, great to be with you! >> hey colorado! hey colorado! are you ready to help us win this thing? >> we will within palm beach county again. we'll win florida again. we'll finish what we started. we will win this election. and will remind the world why the united states of america is the greatest nation on earth. >> in the spotlight tonight, the new, smaller battle ground map with just two weeks until election day, the new map finds the race narrowing down to just seven states. colorado, florida, iowa, new hampshire, iowa, virginia, wisconsin. nevada is leaning towards president obama, while north carolina is leaning towards

romney. the washington host that's the two tied. the reuters poll has them tied and it also projects that president obama will virginia, ohio win the presidency. krystal, paul ryan's not too practiced about campaigning in more than one state. his whole life he's had to say hello wisconsin. didn't it seem like he was trying to convince himself? >> it seemed a little odd like he was working himself up. honestly, i've been talking to a number of moderate republicans, traditional north eastern moderate rockefeller republicans who are uncomfortable with paul ryan.

who feel he's not ready to be commander in chief and feel his budget is too far to the right, too extreme and not what they want the republican party to be championing. >> steve what i love about this narrowing is i don't have to pay attention to as many states. i personally have decided to just pay attention to just ohio. so i'm relying on you to watch those states. so it's becoming more and more real as we get closer. >> yeah. i think the way i'm trying to look at this map and the way i'm understanding, obama is ahead in the electoral college right now. there are two things that romney needs to accomplish here. the first is you look at these obama '08 states he needs to flip. one is north carolina, florida, virginia, colorado. i think he's well positioned to take back north carolina, he's probably ahead in florida right now and i would put virginia and colorado basically in the toss-up category.

to get past the first level romney needs to take all of those. then we can get into the second level where he can take on ohio on top of that, or take wisconsin plus new hampshire, iowa or nevada and he becomes the president that way. it's plausible but that gives you a sense of obama has a lot of opportunities here to ruin mitt romney's path completely. pick off colorado or virginia and we might not even have is to talk about ohio. >> when there's a monday debate in florida, you have to go there for the whole weekend. >> is that how that works? i went to kentucky. >> yeah. so when i wasn't on the beach, i was watching tv and catching these florida ads and the obama ads, pro obama ads, a lot of attack ads, but the pro obama ads are all targeted to women and it's all about planned parenthood. it's just quoting romney saying get rid of planned parenthood.

we have new debate news tonight from republican world on these issues because we've had this debate in indiana in the senate race where the candidate there endorsed by romney said tonight in the debate that rape pregnancies, i'm going to quote him now, are something that god intended to happen. that has forced the romney campaign to immediately come out, while we've been on the air tonight, and say, in a statement only, governor romney disagrees with richard murdoch's comments and they do not reflect his views. this is one of those things for the romney campaign where this issue will keep coming at them, not just from the obama ads, but also from within the party. >> right. and they just thought they had gotten past having to talk about todd akin and his comments, now we have richard murdoch to remind voters how extreme the entire republican party. these are not isolated

incidents. i don't know why we're shocked. >> i didn't look shocked. >> you didn't look shocked. this is the republican party platform. no abortions, no exceptions, even in cases of rape or incest and these guys have to find a way to justify it to themselves. >> we have the video coming in from the debate so we can listen to the way he said this. let's watch this. >> the bottom line is, that if in fact when a man would leave a woman, the mother of his children -- >> it turns out we don't. the control room is still working on last night's debate. so they don't have it. steve, this is also a very risky situation for the republican senate. the republicans should never lose a senate race in indiana and they can do it. >> you got the feeling that god's intended not to take over the u.s. senate. this is the second straight

election when the republicans went way too far to the right in their primaries. richard luger would have been a shoe-in if he had been the nominee this year. claire mccaskill was a goner. those two seats now, i would say after tonight. >> the control room now believes that they have it. let's just see if we're staring at monitors or if we're actually going to hear this piece of debate. >> i too certainly stand for life. i know there are some who disagree and i respect their point of view. but i believe that life begins at conception. the only exception i have to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. i struggled with it, i've come to realize that life is a gift from god and even when it begins in a horrible situation of rape

and that it is something that god intended to happen. >> this is why the president has such a huge advantage on issues of women's health, on issues of abortion and has maintained such a large gender gap because people are not comfortable with where the republican party has gone on woman's right to choose. tim cane, when he rain for governor in 2005, the landscape has changed so dramatically, back then when he ran, he said i have a faith based opposition to abortion and went on to explain his position. now he leads with i will strongly support a women's right to choose. the landscape has shifted so dramatically because republicans have gone way out on a limb where americans are totally uncomfortable. >> we have the latest statement from candidate mourdock after the debate. where he says god does not want rape, rape is a horrible thing.

and for anyone to twist my words -- what? for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick. >> when two major senators had to clarify that yes, rape is a terrible thing. >> thanks for joining me tonight. >> coming up, mitt romney is following the tradition of attacking the united states military. that's in tonight's rewrite. and d.l. hughley is back with his take on the debate last night. ♪

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>> he does come up with that? that's the official spin after the fact. >> the horses and bayonets line is so good, it's so perfect, that it has the whiff of comedy writer about it. team obama knew that mitt romney was going to do his bit about having fewer ships than he had in 1916, because romney says that pretty much everywhere he goes. they knew the president had to be ready with that. someone came up with that devastating line about horses and bayonets. there was something familiar about the horses thing when i heard it. and today, i reached for a book that speech writers have nearby when searching for funny ways of framing political ideas. al franken's lies and the lying liars tell them. written in 2004 before he ran for and won a seat in the united states senate. in a chapter entitled bush can't lose with clinton's military.

he agrees with this statement by dick cheney. a commander in chief leads the military built by those who came before him. there is little that he or his defense secretary can do to improve the force that they have to deploy. it is all the work of previous administrations. he points out that bush went to war in afghanistan nine months after taking office. the military took control of a country that the soviet union couldn't control and the british failed to subdue and the military did that in two weeks. it was not the bush/cheney military that let the success slip away. the military that the bush/cheney administration deployed with complete confidence in afghanistan and later in iraq was bill clinton's

military much the same military that the bush/cheney campaign chose to lie about every day of our last peace time presidential campaign. candidate bush repeatedly said that our military was at its lowest state of readiness since pearl harbor. on august 3, 2000, bush said, quote, if called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the army would have to report not ready for duty, sir. that is when george w. bush thought he was running for the job of peace-time commander in chief. he found out soon enough that the military was ready for duty. the military that bill clinton handed him. the franken book remind us that republicans running against a democratic white house always attack the military. they always claim that the military is not ready for the

challenges the world is presenting. they always claim we need to ramp up military spending. what mitt romney is doing now is strict out of the george w. bush campaign and the ronald reagan campaign. and what president obama said about it last night is pretty much straight out of this book. in making the point that it is pointless to compare individual budget items in the defense department budget over time, like, say, the number of ships in 1916 versus the number of ships today, al franken, then still a comedy writer, produced a graph comparing the defense budgets of abraham lincoln and ronald reagan on one item. horses. in 1864, president lincoln requested 188,718 new horses and

120 years later, president reagan, to his eternal shame requested only three. which led al franken to ask in his book, why did reagan gut our military? and so, to the list of those who worked hard helping president obama prepare for last night's debate, a list that includes john kerry, david axelrod and self several others, perhaps we should add the name of the man whose comedy writing may have planted the seed for the best line of the neat. al franken. >> you mention the navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back

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okay. let's see it one more time. the line of the night, the most memorable line of all three presidential debates. >> you mentioned the navy, for example. and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. well governor we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. we have ships that go under water, nuclear submarines. so the question is not a game of battleship where we're counting ships. >> d.l., look at this guy. what -- now, look at the big board picture if that helps you, but what is that man thinking during this lecture? >> right there he acts like the model for ernie from sesame street. i think he was thinking damn horses. >> this is what this guy looks like when he really hates somebody.

>> he looks so constipated to me. that clearly is not -- i thought it was his last best shot to really kind of seal the deal and i think that he, to me, him and romney -- him and obama switched places. i think he was obama from the first debate last night. >> he was trying to play it safe. >> and just, i mean, lies when the truth will do. i love cars. like, you know, people -- you can do that and i guess that's a political exercise and it's one that they constantly engage in, but they forget that people have smart phones, we have so many ways that a person at home can just pull up what you said and know that -- you can't look like you're blatantly trying to be deceitful. >> there was a moment the families go up on the stage afterwards and tag romney, his idea of a joke i want to take a

swing at the president when he says my father was a liar. they shook hand and had a moment. i don't suppose there was any apology there. >> it's easy to say something behind someone's back. and i heard i did say he was sorry. so i don't know. >> i wouldn't be surprised if the president even heard about it. >> i think he heard about it. >> i did my joke about it. >> romney world didn't think it was a joke but romney world thinks that what tag art did was a joke. this crazy thing tonight that just erupted in the senate debate with mourdock saying that a rape pregnancy was a gift from god. >> he said it was god's will. >> he said we twist his words. i'm going to twist his words by playing him saying his words.

>> i, too, certainly stand for life. i know there are some who disagree and i respect their point of view but i believe that life begins at conception. the only exception i have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. i just, i struggled with it myself for a long time but i came to realize life is a gift from god and i think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that god intended to happen. >> let me tell you something, that would make him your creepy uncle. the republicans amaze me they're obsessed with smaller government and women's reproductive system. i don't think they'll be able to stop until government is so small it can fit in a woman's vagina. it's amazing to me. >> once again, d.l. hughley gets tonight's last word.